1. Technical Field
This invention is directed to telephone terminals and more particularly, to a telephone terminal configurable by a user for accessing features available on the terminal through an interactive display arrangement.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Current trends in the design of telephone terminals indicate that more and more telephone functionality is being integrated into the telephone display. For example, information as to the features available on the display has migrated from LEDs to the display, and local additions such as directories, status inspection, incoming caller information etc., are all migrating to the display.
The technology presently in use in telephone displays is character-based liquid crystal device (LCD) displays. These displays are configured in various array sizes such as, for example, 2 line by 24 character LCD and 2 line by 40 character LCD. In order to be aesthetically pleasing when incorporated into the telephone housing, these displays tend to be small, typically on the order of one inch in height. Also, in order to provide a reasonable number of characters for information such as caller information and directory access information, a small font size for the characters is generally used.
Many interactive display arrangements available today permit accessing the features available on the display through softkeys. In order to provide a high level of functionally with a sufficient level of clarity in these displays, many softkey label screen prompts have heretofore been provided for accessing the available features. These screen prompts consume space in the display and thus limit the space available in the display for other selectable softkey functions. Although these screen prompts are provided to improve clarity and ease of use of the display as a user of the telephone terminal moves about in the hierarchy of menu screens, often they tend to be confusing as well.
For example, some display arrangements available in the prior art typically use two different softkey labels "SAVE" and "BACK" as screen prompts. The first softkey label SAVE is used for advancing at the same level in the menu hierarchy to a "sibling" menu screen. The second softkey label BACK is used for completing the task and moving up to a "parent" or the next higher level in the menu hierarchy. When these screen prompts are offered in the same menu screen, the user must be able to determine correctly the softkey label for advancing to the next sibling screen as well as the softkey label that abandons the feature being accessed and moves the display up to the parent screen in the menu hierarchy. It is desirable, therefore, that space in a small interactive display of a telephone terminal be conserved where possible. It is also desirable that a user of the telephone terminal be able to move among available menu screens in the interactive display arrangement in an easily understandable and error free manner.